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In light of our recently essay — Edom In The Old And New Testaments — we thought it would benefit the discussion to add a follow-up piece on the subject of Malachi 1– a passage often quoted by those who identify Edom as literal modern-day Jews.
The passage in question is Malachi 1:1-5,
1 The pronouncement of the word of the Lord to Israel through Malachi: 2 “I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have You loved us?” “Was Esau not Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob; 3 but I have hated Esau, and I have made his mountains a desolation and given his inheritance to the jackals of the wilderness.” 4 Though Edom says, “We have been beaten down, but we will return and build up the ruins”; this is what the Lord of armies says: “They may build, but I will tear down; and people will call them the territory of wickedness, and the people with whom the Lord is indignant forever.” 5 And your eyes will see this, and you will say, “The Lord be exalted beyond the border of Israel!”
Those who believe that this refers to modern-day Jews will point out that the Jews have been literally attempting to “build up the ruins” in Palestine since the foundation of the nation-state of Israel in 1948 — and is therefore a fulfillment of that prophesy.
They will also claim that the verse “Yet I have loved Jacob; but I have hated Esau” singles out Esau from among all the nations as a doomed people. In other words, they believe that only Esau is doomed and the rest of the nations are not. Their circular reasoning is that only modern-day Jews are worthy of being doomed, and so it must be them who are doomed in Malachi.
We have already demonstrated that modern-day Jews cannot be literal Edomites — and so Malachi 1 is not referring to Jews ab initio — from the outset. Clearly, Malachi is referring to the land of Edom being rebuilt, not Judea or Palestine. The Jews cannot “return and rebuild” Edom because they had never built there — because they aren’t Edomites. They were not “beaten down” because it was the Edomites who were beaten down, not the Jews.
Those who claim Malachi refers to “Edomite Jews” misinterpret the phrase “return and rebuild” as Edomites returning to Judea to rebuild it — based on their presumption that “Edomite Jews” inhabited Judea in the time of Christ — and they returned to build it up again in the year 1948.
However, this is not at all what the prophecy is saying. Even if Malachi 1 were referring to Jews who are Edomites, that position still faces a glaring inconsistency with the passage. Verse 3 clearly states, “I have made his mountains a desolation.” Edom was given Mount Seir and the surrounding mountainous region as their own land in Deuteronomy 2:4,
do not provoke them, for I will not give you any of their land, not even as much as a footprint, because I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession.
The fundamental premise of Malachi’s prophecy is that the Edomites have been beaten down in their own land — and they are going to return to their own land to rebuild it. This prophecy is referring to an actual and verifiable event in Scripture of Edom being beaten down and rebuilding their own land. 1 Kings 11:14-22 tells us exactly that:
14 Then the Lord raised up an adversary against Solomon, Hadad the Edomite; he was of the royal line in Edom. 15 For it came about, when David was in Edom and Joab the commander of the army had gone up to bury those killed in battle, and had struck and killed every male in Edom 16 (for Joab and all Israel stayed there for six months, until he had eliminated every male in Edom), 17 that Hadad fled to Egypt, he and certain Edomites of his father’s servants with him, while Hadad was a young boy. 18 They set out from Midian and came to Paran; and they took men with them from Paran and came to Egypt, to Pharaoh king of Egypt, who gave him a house and assigned him food and gave him land. 19 Now Hadad found great favor in the sight of Pharaoh, so that he gave him in marriage the sister of his own wife, the sister of Tahpenes the queen. 20 And the sister of Tahpenes gave birth to his son Genubath, whom Tahpenes weaned in Pharaoh’s house; and Genubath was in Pharaoh’s house among the sons of Pharaoh. 21 But when Hadad heard in Egypt that David lay down with his fathers and that Joab the commander of the army was dead, Hadad said to Pharaoh, “Let me go, so that I may go to my own country.” 22 However, Pharaoh said to him, “But what have you lacked with me that you are here, requesting to go to your own country?” And he answered, “Nothing; nevertheless you must let me go.”
We can see that there was a period of time when there was not even one male Edomite in all of the land of Edom — and yet they returned later in order to rebuild it. Conversely, there is no point in time in Scripture where the Edomites ever “returned” to Judea to rebuild it.
We have an instance where they returned to rebuild their own land — along with the statement, “I have made his mountains a desolation” — but not a single instance where they returned to rebuild Judea. Why would we presume that this verse could possibly refer to Edomites returning to rebuild the land of Judea?
Yet Israel had suffered a similar fate with the Babylonian and Assyrian conquests of the Israelites — and that in combination with the fact that Edom is Israel’s brother, makes them a perfect match for such a comparison…
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE… (christiansfortruth.com)
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